New book explores six big ideas to reform healthcare

TORONTO (NEWS 1130) – Canadians recognize the importance of universal healthcare, but we shouldn’t become complacent about our own system.

That’s according to the author of Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians, a new book that outlines a number of ways we can reform healthcare in this country.

“Well, the first big idea in the book is access to a trusted family doctor for every Canadian,” explains Dr. Danielle Martin, herself a family physician in Ontario.

She figures were well on our way to achieving that goal already.

“Eighty-five per cent of Canadians now say that they have a family doctor or a primary care provider and that number rises to 95 per cent for people who have a chronic disease, so that’s pretty good.”

However, Martin admits many others are still without a proper family physician or timely access to the one they do have.

“One of the things I try to do in the book is to explain through the stories of people in my own life,” she says.

“What that looks like, when it works, and how that trusting relationship with someone who knows you over time can protect your health, can protect you from over-prescribing and over-doctoring and can also save money for the healthcare system.”

Another idea is radical public policy proposal: a guaranteed annual income in lieu of traditional welfare payments.

She says the idea was inspired by a patient who suffered horrible lung disease because of the mold in her subsidized housing unit and illustrates a common problem right across the country.

“What it’s like for people who live in poverty to try to get ahead in so many areas of their life but, specifically, with respect to their health and how much that costs the healthcare system, not just in the long run but in the short and the medium term.”

When she wrote the book, Martin thought the idea of a guaranteed annual income was the most radical of her six proposals, but now she is heartened to learn, it is an idea taking root in a number of places.

“Ontario has now announced that it’s going to be running a pilot project on the guaranteed annual income,” she says.

“Political leaders have expressed an interest in running a pilot on PEI. We’ve seen Finland, the whole country, running an experiment on the guaranteed annual income.”

Other ideas include bringing prescription drugs under medicare, reducing unnecessary tests and interventions, reorganizing health care delivery to reduce wait times and improve quality, and scaling up successful local innovations to a national level.

Look for Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians wherever books are sold.